


That Which Time and Distance Cannot Alter

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception, Pre-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:31:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Chromonym’s prompt: "Nash/Tadashi- Ten years after Inception, Tadashi is a skilled extractor in his own right. Nash doesn't work in shared dreaming anymore, but Tadashi needs an architect. Tadashi convinces him to go back in the field for one last job."</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which Time and Distance Cannot Alter

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Chromonym told me to do it! Blame her!  
> Notes: Set post-Inception by ten years. Canon compliant.

 

_Today_

  
  
“Ready to go, champ?”  
  
“Almost—I can’t find Winston!”  
  
Matt sighs. They go through this every visit. Jesse can’t find something in that tornado-alley he calls a room, and goes into a panic. As if he won’t ever be coming back, and has to take everything that means  _anything_  with him to his mother’s.  
  
And heaven forbid Jesse should actually  _forget_  that he’s forgetting something at Matt’s. Cue the panicked calls at nine p.m., asking  _please, daddy, please find my *fill in the blank* and bring it home?_  
  
‘Bring it home.’ Because his home is wherever Aiko is—and of course that home is Jesse’s  _actual_ home because it’s where he’s lived since he was two, not the grim, Spartan apartment in which Matt now hangs his figurative hat.  
  
“Daddeeeee!” Jesse whines from his room, obviously about to ask for help he’s not going to get because if he  _does_ , then  _Matt_  will get the sharper side of his ex-wife’s tongue for having Jesse back to her  _seven whole minutes late_.  
  
“If I find your gecko, I’ll bring him to you, okay, champ? We really have to go. . . .” Matt calls in his most patient tone. “Your mom’s waiting.”  
  
Silence for nearly a minute, then a  _clunk_  as something falls over in Jesse’s room. “Okay, I guess,” is the guilty sounding reply. That means that  _clunk_  was either something expensive or something big. Or both. Something Matt doesn’t currently have the money to replace, like Jesse’s t.v., or Jesse’s laptop.  
  
Matt pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs again. Honestly, he loves the kid more than anything, and would gladly die for him. But sometimes . . . sometimes Matt gets so  _exasperated_ by him. The boy’s too disorganized, too much of a packrat . . . too much like his mother, in both his sentimentality for anything or anyone that isn’t Matt, and his uncanny way of treading on Matt’s last nerve.  
  
Take now, for example.  
  
God, and he  _really_  doesn’t want to hear Aiko’s mouth about being late  _yet again_. . . .  
  
A minute later, Jesse dashes out of his bedroom, backpack jouncing on his back, with a triumphant grin on his face and a gecko in his hands.  
  
“I found him! He was under my desk, sleeping,” he pants, breathless and relieved. Matt squats so they’re eye to eye and makes his sternest face.  
  
“Jay, buddy, didn’t we agree you weren’t gonna let Winston roam around outside his terrarium?”  
  
Jesse squirms a little, and hides Winston behind his back, as if afraid Matt will take him away.  
  
“I wasn’t—I didn’t do it on purpose, daddy. I forgot to put him away last night,” Jesse mumbles, looking down at his feet.  
  
Quelling the urge to chastise the boy the way his own father might have done, Matt tries to smile, well aware that it probably looks more like a dyspeptic grimace than an expression of gentle love and concern. “Hey, it’s okay, kiddo, but next time, try and remember to put him away, alright? It’s not safe for him to be running around the apartment where he can get stepped on or vacuumed up.”  
  
And now Jesse’s eyes are wide with horror and tears.  
  
_Great job, Matt, just great. You’re father of the year._  Matt picks up his eight year old son and hugs him close. “Not that that’s gonna happen, just . . . be more careful with the little guy, okay?”  
  
Jesse sniffs, but looks mollified. “’Kay, daddy.”  
  
“Okay!” Matt grabs Jesse’s small duffle and slings it on his back. “Time to  _andelay_ , kiddo. Back to mom’s.”  
  
At this, Jesse smiles a watery, but nonetheless pleased smile. “Yeah, back home,” he agrees, and another jagged shard of Matt’s bitter heart crumbles.  
  
But he keeps up his phony smile and lets them out of the apartment.  


 

*

  
  
An hour and a half later, Matt lets himself back into the apartment, locking the door behind him and leaning against it as he flicks the dimmer switch.  
  
This time, the argument with Aiko had been his fault entirely. Yes, he  _had_  been a little late getting Jesse back but, other than a disapproving look, Aiko had said nothing, choosing instead hug Jesse and pat him down while doing so. As if she hadn’t expected him to arrive in one piece.  
  
Just that had done it. Matt had been the one to open his mouth, this particular Sunday evening. To start the fight that always seems to be awaiting he and his ex-wife every time they see each other.  
  
It's his fault that he’d also ended the fight by calling Aiko a ‘passive aggressive cunt’ in front of Jesse.  
  
(To be fair, however, she’d called him a ‘lying, cheating cocksucker,’ first. Also in front of Jesse.)  
  
Matt pushes a hand through his hair—already graying at an alarming rate, though thankfully still as much there as it ever was—and scratches at his unmowed stubble.  
  
One good thing about Jesse being gone, he’s discovered, is he can drink himself into a blackout-state without having to worry about setting anyone a bad example.  
  
Hell, he can already taste that first burning sip of Jack Daniels as it hits his tongue then the back of his throat . . . when there’s a soft knock on the door. It startles him into dropping his keys on the floor and fans the banked embers of his anger at Aiko’s high-handed, self-righteous bullshit.  
  
Swearing, he snatches up the keys and deposits them on the small hook by the coat rack and rolls his shoulders.  
  
It doesn’t even occur to him to simply pretend he’s not home. He unlocks the door and yanks it open without looking through the peephole, some choice words on his lips for whoever the  _fuck_ thinks it’s okay to bother him on Sunday-motherfucking-evening—  
  
—only to have those words wither and die on his lips.  
  
Standing uncertainly on his WELCOME mat, is a smallish, young Asian guy in jeans and a Johnny Quid t-shirt that both fit like a second skin. His hair shoulder length, inky black hair is parted down the center and tucked behind small, shapely ears. Long, almond-shaped, impossibly dark eyes catalogue Matt from a comely oval of a face. Perfect lips so shiny and pink they have to be glossed are swiped by a pointed tip of tongue, and the guy smiles like the sun’s just risen in his own personal world.  
  
“Hello,” he says in a low, musical voice; not the hesitant  _herro?_  of some Japanese fresh off the boat, but still flavored with an accent. Matt blinks, trying to banish the surreality of this moment. Trying to banish what  _has_  to be a dream.  _Has_  to be. “Hello, Mr. Nash. You may not remember me, but my name is—“  
  
“I remember who you are, Tadashi,” Matt says without even a tremor to give away how fucking _shaken_  he is. He can’t seem to stop blinking, as if this whole interlude is a dream that he’s having and needs to wake up from. “How could I forget?” Matt laughs a little, still waiting for the punchline to this dream. None is forthcoming. “The question is: how did you find me, and what do you want?”  
  
There’s a flicker in those dark eyes Matt can’t read, then flicker and eyes are shuttered by long lashes and longer hair as Tadashi looks down at his feet. He’s wearing black Converse All-Stars with neon pink laces.  
  
“You, Matthew,” he murmurs, a small wry smile curving his lips for a moment only. Then he looks back up at Matt, serious and solemn as a fucking churchyard. “You.”  


 

_Ten years ago. . . ._

  
  
It takes forever for the sedative to kick in, it seems like.  
  
In the meantime, he and Cobb and Arthur hang out in the corridor of the bullet train, smoking and talking in terse, tense bursts of words, themselves like bullets.  
  
Finally, Tad pokes his head out of the passenger cabin he and Saito share and gives them the thumbs up.  
  
“Thank fucking Christ,” Arthur mutters, picking up the case containing the PASIV. Cobb grunts and Matt flashes Tad a big smile.  
  
“You done good, kid,” he murmurs as Cobb and Arthur shoulder their way into the cabin without so much as a ‘thank you.’  
  
Tad returns the smile blindingly and blocks Matt’s way into the cabin. “Do I get a reward, Matthew- _san_?”  
  
Matt’s smile turns into a smirk and he pulls Tad against him. “A real  _big_  one when we get to Kyoto. And believe me . . . this gift keeps on giving. And giving. And giving.” Each  _giving_  is accompanied by a lazy, slow thrust of Matt's hips.  
  
“Hmm, sounds . . . wonderful,” Tad says dreamily, looking up into Matt’s eyes like he thinks Matt hung the moon. Which is a saying Matt’s always heard, but never had a frame of reference for until now.  
  
He reaches up and caresses Tad’s face, leaning in to kiss him. Tad meets him halfway, his hands clenching in Matt’s suit jacket, and . . . it's good. Unbelievably good.  
  
It feels like only seconds that they’ve been kissing (but then, it always feels that way) before Arthur is clearing his throat. They both look around to see him frowning at them.  
  
“Save it for after the job, horndogs. It’s time to get to work. Nash, you get ready for the cannula; I’m setting the timer so you’ll go under first. Tadashi, you play lookout till we’re under. After that, it’s your job to make sure we're tuned in and that we kick on time. Not a moment before. Capische?”  
  
"Capische." Tadashi nods almost sullenly. The kid doesn’t particularly care for Arthur, and Arthur doesn’t care that the kid doesn’t particularly care for him. Cobb, automaton that he can be, ignores them all, as usual, in favor of staring at Saito, whose face is slack with drugged sleep.  
  
“This is one of the most powerful men in the world,” he says, half to himself. Then smiles bemusedly. “What in hell’s he doing riding a common passenger train to Kyoto when he’s got three personal helicopters and two private jets?”  
  
Arthur’s eyebrow quirks up at Cobb. “Didn’t you read the intel I gave you about the mistress? This is how he always goes to see her. It’s less conspicuous than landing on her roof in a fucking _chopper_ , Dom.”  
  
“Ah. Good point.” Cobb nods sagely, turning that bemused gaze on Arthur. A long, not quite uncomfortable moment spins out between the two of them—fraught with tension of an almost sexual nature, if Matt’s any judge of these things—then evaporates. Arthur goes back to the PASIV and Cobb refocuses on the Japanese horizon.  
  
Matt and Tad share a glance. They’ve both agreed, during the lazy, post-coital kind of pillow-talk only the utterly besotted engage in, that Arthur might be less of a prick and Cobb less of a robot if they would just hurry up and fuck each other, already.  
  
“You’ll be careful?” Tad asks quietly, and in that moment, he looks even younger than his seventeen years.  
  
“Always.” Matt grins and sneaks another kiss while Arthur’s back is turned. “This’ll be over and done before we know it, and then . . . I’m gonna take you to dinner, take you clubbing, and then I’ll just take you.”  
  
Tad shivers and slides his arms around Matt, squeezes his ass, and drops him a saucy wink. Then he’s edging past Matt with  _way_  more frontal contact than is warranted by even such close accommodations.  
  
“Close the fucking door, nimrod.” Arthur casts Matt an annoyed glance. Matt rolls his eyes, but does as he’s bidden, stealing one last glance at Tad’s cute little ass before the door clicks shut.  
  
“You and that kid are becoming more of a liability, than an assett.”  
  
“Oh, fuck you, Arthur,” Matt says mildly, laughing, because in a flash of understanding he realizes that the great Arthur Fitzgerald is  _jealous_. Of  _Matt_. “We keep it professional when we need to.”  
  
“Like that little make-out session just now?” Arthur snorts, standing up and putting his hands on his hips like someone’s mother. “If you can’t keep it in your pants  _now_ , of all times, what the hell have you been doing for the past three months?”  
  
_Everything you wish you could do with Cobb,_  Matt thinks, but says: “My job. And as long as I keep doing it, you got nothin’ to say about what Tad and I do off hours.”  
  
Arthur has some no doubt witty comeback on his lips when Cobb interrupts him, his eyes ticking back and forth between Arthur and Matt.  
  
“Arthur, he’s right. What he and Tadashi do in their personal time is none of our business.”  
  
“It is when he can’t keep his hands off his jailbait squeeze for long enough to see the job through!” Arthur hisses like a scalded cat, then visibly reins himself in, his face going as unreadable as stone. “You know what? We don’t have time for this stupid shit. We need to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Sit down, Dom.”  
  
Cobb sits wordlessly, watching Arthur, who kneels in front of Cobb and preps his left arm with the ease of practice. With the ease of practice, Cobb lets him, turning his gaze to the window and the scenery passing by once more.  
  
_Is it that he’s blind, or that he just doesn’t_ want _to see?_  Matt wonders, observing the gentle care Arthur takes with Cobb’s arm, despite his usual brisk efficiency.  
  
It’s almost sweet. For Arthur, anyway.  
  
Matt sits across from Cobb and quickly busies himself with his own cannula before he has to hear Arthur’s mouth one more time.  
  
In less than a minute, they’re all set up, Saito included. Arthur looks around at them all, and smiles his hard, unhappy smile. “Hang on to your balls.”  
  
He flicks the switch on the PASIV and sits back in his seat, closing his eyes. A quick glance shows that Cobb’s eyes are also closed.  
  
Matt glances doorward. Tad has his forehead pressed against the small window set in the door, and is gazing in at Matt with that hung-the-moon expression on his face.  
  
“ _Watashi wa anata o aishite,_ ” he mouths slowly, broadly. Matt smiles. Of course Tad thinks he’s in love. Since hooking up with Matt, he’s been getting sex regularly for three months—damned good sex, if Matt has anything to say about it—living in a rather posh Tokyo hotel since said hook-up, and being squired to fancy restaurants and gifted with cash, clothing, and electronics. Not to mention Matt’s given Tad free use of his PASIV.  
  
In other words, Matt’s been literally charming the pants off the kid. Not that it takes much—Tad seems to be genuinely attracted to him, even looks up to him. No one’s  _ever_  looked up to Matt before, and he’d be lying if he didn’t say the feeling was a heady one that made  _him_  sometimes feel like he might be falling in love, too. . . .  
  
But that’s just ridiculous. Twenty-nine year olds do  _not_  fall in love with seventeen year olds. Hell, they’re not even supposed to  _fuck around_  with seventeen year olds, but fall in love with them? No. Matt refuses to even entertain the notion.  
  
Only. . . .  
  
He kind of  _does_  want to see where this whole thing between he and Tad goes. If it’ll just fizzle out after some epic post-job nookie, or if . . . if Tad will want to go on with him, to Hong Kong.  
  
The thought that the kid might glom onto him doesn’t fill Matt with as much consternation and worry as he might have thought it would.  
  
So, yeah, Matt smiles at Tad and mouths back something that makes Tad grin and wink again: “ _Kyōto, akanbō ni anata o sanshō shite kudasai._ ”  _See you in Kyoto, babe._  
  
Only he doesn’t. The last time Matt sees Tad, the doors of the bullet train are closing between them at the Kyoto station. Then Tad is being swept away from Matt, and ever closer to that Japanese horizon.  
  
The familiar strains of  _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_  haunt Matt for months afterward.  


 

_Today_

  
  
“You still like whiskey?”  
  
Tadashi nods distractedly, looking around the apartment with those beautiful, cataloguing eyes. The place looks barely lived in, Matt knows. Impersonal and almost cold, but for the few framed photos he has in random places.  
  
He snorts. “Good, because that’s all I got besides tequila.”  
  
Tadashi makes a face. “No tequila, thank you.”  
  
“Right-o. Make yourself at home, and I’ll, uh, get some glasses.” It’s been awhile since Matt even _bothered_  with a  _glass_  when it comes to drinking.  
  
When he emerges from the kitchen, glasses in one hand, whiskey in the other, he sees Tadashi examining a photo of Matt and Jesse at Chuck E. Cheese for his last birthday. Of course that photo had been taken the day  _before_  Jesse’s actual birthday.  _On_  Jesse’s birthday, the boy'd been at his mother’s having a bonanza of a party that Matt had only been grudgingly invited to. And once he’d arrived, Aiko certainly hadn’t encouraged him to stay. . . .  
  
Matt puts the glasses on the coffee table and slops some Jack into each of them. Then he crosses the room to take the picture from Tadashi’s hand. He puts it back on the dusty, mostly empty bookshelf.  
  
“Look, I got out of the dreamsharing business a long time ago, Tad- _ch—_ “ the old endearment comes to his lips like no time at all has passed, giving Matt's personal autocorrect a run for its money. “Tadashi- _san_. I haven’t built so much as a fucking sandcastle at the beach since the Saito job. So if you’re hard up for an Architect—”  
  
“I’m not ‘hard up,’ as you say,” Tadashi interrupts with a flash of annoyance. “There are many Architects who would be . . . suitable for the job I have in mind. Thank you,” he adds when Nash presses the glass of whiskey into his hand. He takes a delicate sip.  
  
“Okay, if that’s true, then why come to me? Some washed-up has-been who never really was a _was_  to begin with?” Matt asks gruffly. He’s never been much of a liar, least of all to himself.  
  
Tadashi’s sloe, dark eyes meet his own. “Because I need someone I can trust to not screw me over.”  
  
Matt’s eyebrows quirk up. “And that would be  _me_? The guy who ratted you and the others out to Saito to save his own neck?”  
  
Tadashi shrugs. “I’ve forgiven you for that. A long time ago. Also, I have reason to believe you’ve learned something of honor and keeping promises in the time since.” He glances at the picture Matt just replaced.  
  
Taking a gulp of his own glassful, Matt laughs. “Oh, Tad- _chan_. You’ve really got the wrong guy. Just because I married a girl I knocked up doesn’t mean I’m this honorable, noble person. The truth is, I’m just as much of a scumbag as I ever was.”  
  
Tadashi’s shaking his head. “I don’t believe you were ever a scumbag. Only scared.”  
  
Matt laughs again, though he’s gone cold. “Scared of what?”  
  
“Ten years ago? Of dying. Now, of living.” Tadashi steps closer to Matt, who doesn’t step back, because he’s  _not_  scared, damnit. Not even of the look in Tadashi’s lovely, achingly familiar eyes. Fear implies that Matt's been anything but numb for the last few years. “There is no happiness in always playing it safe, Matthew. Not for such as we. We need excitement and danger the way a starving man needs bread and water.”  
  
“Oh, is  _that_  what I need?” Matt demands, suddenly angry again. “’Excitement and danger’? Is that why I threw my life with Aiko and Jesse away? Because they weren’t dangerous or exciting enough for me? Is that why I cheated on Aiko over and over until I got caught, and why I spend my time alienating her and Jesse over my own mistakes like it’s  _their_  fault I can’t live a normal life like a normal man? Is that  _it_ , Tad?”  
  
There’s compassion in Tadashi’s eyes, but there’s steel there, too. “Yes,” he says simply, and in the silence that follows, Matt nearly slaps him.  
  
Tadashi’s mouth opens in a glossy little “O”, as if he can read what Matt is only barely refraining from doing, but he doesn’t step back. Instead, he steps even closer, till Matt can smell whiskey and sandalwood. Till all he can see are Tadashi’s  _eyes_. . . .  
  
“Yes,” Tadashi says again, and this time Matt has a completely different urge to fight. He wants nothing more than to taste those glossy, pretty lips like he had ten years ago. He wants to lose himself in those  _eyes_  and those arms. He want Tadashi flat on his back or his stomach, or on his knees . . . any way he can have him.  
  
He just  _wants_.  
  
And for the first time in what feels like forever, he  _gets_.  
  
Tadashi drops his glass, bounces up on his toes and kisses Matt softly, cool, gentle hands coming up to cup Matt’s face. Moaning, Matt flicks his tongue at Tadashi’s slightly parted lips and tastes, of all things, bubblegum. It should make him laugh, but laughter’s the farthest thing from his mind as he pulls Tadashi closer by slim, denim-clad hips. When Tadashi’s tongue touches his own, he moans again and his glass joins Tadashi’s on the carpet. His hands slide around to Tadashi’s firm, small ass to squeeze and knead.  
  
In his mind, today is melding with  _yesterday_ , with ten years ago, when he and Tadashi—no, _Tad-chan_ —would spend hours kissing and touching and fucking in Matt’s hotel room. Hours Matt should have been spending researching and building and getting the dream-worlds fucking _perfect_  because they  _needed_  to be perfect, or else his— _all_ —their asses would be in slings.  
  
He remembers days when promising each other they’d keep it professional all flew out the window, when looks and smiles weren’t enough, and they’d sneak off to whatever convenient place (bathroom, maintenance closet, Matt’s rental car) could avail them of a quick, dirty fuck.  
  
He remembers never being as happy as he was in those days and nights spent between Tadashi’s legs or down his throat or just grinding against him until they both came in their pants.  
  
He remembers thinking that if— _if_ —this job went good, he might settle in Hong Kong for awhile and see where this whole thing with Tad might go . . . might see if they could keep the endorphin-hormone high of their time together going for as long as possible. . . .  
  
God, and on the heels of that, he remembers how it felt to be so scared of death and of COBOL, that he’d sold out his associates, his fucking  _friends_  and his lover to Saito on the hopes that the man would keep him safe from his many, many enemies.  
  
That hope hadn’t held out for long. And though he’d managed to square things with COBOL, by some miracle, he’d never even  _tried_  to square things with those he’d betrayed. Not Cobb, not Arthur, and not Tad. . . .  
  
Tad, who’s now whispering endearments in his ear in Japanese and rubbing against him like a cat in heat, hard and breathing that way.  
  
Tad, who’s making a mess of unbuttoning Matt’s shirt with fingers that tremble and are clumsy-urgent.  
  
Tad, who’s switched to English, and is murmuring on Matt’s chest just how much he needs him and wants him and  _loves_  him . . . never  _stopped_  loving him—  
  
“No, don’t—“ Matt finally pushes Tad away firmly, wiping his mouth and shaking his head. “We can’t do this.  _I_  can’t do this. Any of it.”  
  
Tad tosses his hair off his face and gets that stubborn, mulish look Matt remembers so well. “Why?”  
  
“ _Why_?” Matt laughs once, harsh and cynical. “I fucking  _sold you out_!”  
  
“I know what you did, Matt. And I know who you are,” Tad says quietly, taking a deep breath. “I know this, and I still trust you. I still  _want_  you. And not just to be my lover.”  
  
“Are you that desperate, or do you just have no standards whatsoever?” Matt turns away. Walks over to his couch and sits down heavily. “I’ve run so hard and so fast from what I did and who I was, but I still can’t get away from any of it. I’m still that same guy. I can’t promise you I won’t betray you in some way, can’t promise that I can be anything like the guy you’ve clearly built up in your mind.”  
  
Matt buries his face in his hands. “Fuck, Tad. I can’t be anything but what I am.”  
  
After a few moments a gentle hand settles lightly on his shoulder, then squeezes. “I wouldn’t want you to be anything else. You, as you are, are what I want.”  
  
Matt shakes his head, and the hand on his shoulder disappears, but a second later, the couch dips slightly and a warm body presses against his side. One arm drapes itself around his shoulders. “I will always love the man that you are. I will never try to make you into someone you’re not.”  
  
“Jesus, Tad, you’re looking at me with a seventeen year old’s eyes. I’m not—“  
  
Tad’s hand turns his face till they’re looking each other in the eye. Matt doesn’t realize he’s crying until Tad brushes his tears away and kisses the tip of his nose.  
  
“Matthew,” he says softly, so fondly, it  _hurts_. It’s been years since anyone spoke to him that way. Ten years, to be exact. Matt catches Tad’s hand and kisses it lingeringly. Lets ten years worth of repressed and forgotten feelings sweep over him and, for a few moments, sweep him away . . . then he carefully pushes the feelings away.  
  
“You should go,” he whispers hoarsely, and Tad looks momentarily anxious. But then he's smiling again, cool and confident.  
  
“I do not take no for an answer. In business or in love. And this happens to be both,” he says, biting his lips the way he used to, and he’s so appealing like this, Matt wants nothing more than . . .  _him_. “I will stay until I convince you of what you already know. And then. . . .”  
  
“And then?” Matt asks, unable to help it, though he knows what Tad will say.  
  
“And then, I will simply stay.”  
  
Matt snorts, and hates being right all the time. “What about this big job you have planned?”  
  
“There’ll be another one. And another one, after that.” Tad shrugs again. “There will never be another you.”  
  
“Hah. You call that a line, in Japan?”  
  
Tad rolls his eyes. “You are such an asshole.”  
  
“Takes one to know one.”  
  
“Then you admit we’re well-suited to each other.” That smile, oh, that  _smile_ , becomes triumphant and Matt rolls his own eyes.  
  
“This is crazy. You’re looking for something that didn’t even exist ten years ago. What we had wasn’t some great love, it was just hormones. I was your first, and maybe you confused that with first love, but Jesus, Tad, those are more often than not two different things!”  
  
“Not in this case.”  
  
“ _Yes_ , in this case!”  
  
Tad’s smile warms so much it’s breath-taking. “Matthew, stop fighting so hard against what you need.”  
  
“You don’t know what I need!”  
  
“Don’t I?” Tad pushes Matt back against the couch and straddles his thighs. He's a comfortable weight, more solid than he looks, and somehow just right. He's everything Matt's been missing for the longest time. Everything he'd looked for in Aiko and, when he couldn't find it with her, damn near any guy he came across.  
  
When Matt doesn’t resist him, Tad runs his hands up and down Matt’s chest as if soothing him. “You need to be touched and loved and taken care of. You need  _me_.”  
  
Matt rolls his eyes again, but otherwise can’t look away from Tad. He’s  _never_  been able to look away, and so help him, time hasn’t changed that. “Jesus, why are you doing this  _now_? After so long?”  
  
Tad leans in close, till their noses are touching and each breath is a shared one. “Because you’re—how do you say? At loose ends? You’re divorced. You only see your son every other weekend. You’re working a job you hate, in a company you hate—“  
  
“How do you know this shit?” Matt demands defensively.  
  
“I know a lot about you,” Tad replies enigmatically. “I know that you love to go bowling by yourself after work, that you’re allergic to shellfish. I know that you cheated on your wife twenty-three times, and each time was with a man who bore more than a passing resemblance to myself.” He pauses. “I know that you’re slowly drinking yourself to death because you’re fantastically unhappy and terribly lonely.”  
  
Matt turns his burning face away from Tad’s. “You know all that, huh? Well, you’re a hell of Pointm—”  
  
Tad shuts him up with the simple expedient of nuzzling his neck. Matt groans and helplessly wraps his arms around Tad, hugging him close. Then Tad’s kissing him again, long and sweetly. Just the way he’d kissed ten years ago, only with more certainty and control. More  _ardor_.  
  
“Actually, I’m an Extractor. One of the best, if I do say so, myself. And I do,” he murmurs on Matt's lips, the glow of pride in his low voice.  
  
That towering self-confidence is another thing Matt remembers, and so fondly he has to steel himself against the yearning, welling  _feeling_  that sweeps through him.  
  
But it does no good. Fighting it once tonight felt like it’d damn near broken him, but twice? Even though fighting would probably be the best and finest thing he’d ever done, saving Tad from his own worst instincts?  
  
_But when have I ever been anyone’s savior? When have I ever done anything but be a selfish, self-pitying prick? And why should I change any of that_ now?  
  
And so help him, he can’t find an answer. Not when the only answer that ever made sense—ever made him  _happy_  is right here, in his arms after too long apart.  
  
With a growl, he bears Tad down onto the couch and pushes his legs apart, lying between them. Tad’s smile during all of this could rival the sun. It’s that unreserved joy that gives Matt pause once more.  
  
“Look, even back in the day, there were plenty of Architects who were better than me, Tad- _chan_ ,” he says quietly, not quite able to address the other thing directly. “If this job of yours is something important—“  
  
“It is.”  
  
“—then you don’t want someone ten years out of practice. Someone who, with one tiny screw up, can get you and your team killed.”  
  
Tad starts to speak again, but this time Matt’s the one who silences  _him_  with a kiss. “Listen to me, baby. I don’t mean I’m saying no to the . . .  _this_. To  _us_. But the job—“  
  
“ _Inception_ ,” Tad whispers, grinning when Matt’s mouth drops open. He bobs up and sucks a quick kiss from Matt's bottom lip. “The job requires Inception . . . you see, now, why I need someone I know and can trust?”  
  
Matt sits back on his heels, shaking his head. “Did I hear you right? Because it sounded like you said ‘Inception.’”  
  
Tad nods once and Matt can only laugh in disbelief and admiration of Tad’s sheer  _balls_.  
  
“You realize Inception is impossible, right?”  
  
“Not impossible,” Tad corrects patiently. “Only very, very difficult. And very dangerous, if the Mark is militarized, which this one is.”  
  
After nearly a minute of gob-smacked staring, Matt shakes his head once more. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”  
  
Tad sits up and places his hands on Matt’s chest, his eyes lambent in the dim lighting. “I’ve never been anything less than serious, when it comes to you.”  
  
Matt sighs as what feel like iron bands wrap themselves around his chest. “Jesus, do you have to say things like that?” But before Tad can answer, Matt sighs yet again, reaching out to run his fingers through Tad’s hair, just like he used to, once upon a time. It’s soft and heavy, like a fall of silk.  
  
“Of course I do,” Tad all but purrs, leaning into Matt’s touch, his eyes sultry and hopeful. “I’ve waited ten years to tell you all that is in my heart, and it will take at least ten years to do the telling.”  
  
“Fuck, but you make it hard to say no, Tad- _chan_ ,” Matt tells him, temporizing while he tries to think of the many reasons this whole thing—getting back into dreamsharing, getting into any kind of relationship with Tad, getting into  _Inception_ —is insane.  
  
“Then  _don’t_  say no. Say yes. Say yes, then make love to me, Matthew,” Tad murmurs, sliding his hand between them and rubbing Matt’s thus far neglected erection. Matt smirks ruefully, kicking himself for his own lack of willpower and reveling in it, too. Reveling in letting himself be lost in Tad’s eyes and touch like no time has passed. “Fuck me.”  
  
“You know I will,” he breathes into their next kiss. As sweet as the others, it’s nonetheless a wanton, thorough affair that leaves them both panting even as they keep trying to reestablish the kiss in breathless meetings of lips, bashing of noses, and clashing of teeth.  
  
“And you’ll come with me to Auckland, then . . . and be my Architect?”  
  
_Auckland?_  Matt moans and tries to think. It’s not easy with Tad licking his tonsils and stroking him off, but after the initial burst of fireworks and pretty colors have faded, still all he sees behind his eyes is . . . Tad. In his  _life_  like he belongs there. Like he never left.  
  
And the life Matt imagines Tad in is nothing like the life he’s living,  _here and now_. There’s no office, no cubicle, no bullshit arguments with his ex-wife. No bowling because it’s better than sitting home alone in a shitty apartment and working on killing his liver.  
  
No, the life he imagines Tad in begins and ends on the tip of a cannula, and in between . . . oh, in between there are  _dreams_  waiting to be built and adventures waiting to be had. There’s a whole world to see and experience.  
  
There’s danger, yes, but there’s excitement, too.  
  
(And maybe even  _Inception_  . . . which is totally  _insane_ , but not impossible to hear some people tell it.)  
  
“ _I’m_  insane,” Matt mutters to himself, then looks up into Tad’s eyes. In them, he sees the promise of everything he’d once had, and thought he’d lost forever. But it’s here again, ripe for the plucking. He just has to reach out and take it. . . .  
  
“Okay," he says softly, taking Tad's hands and kissing them again. "I’m listening.”  
  
Tad grins, and it's like the sun's just risen in Matt's own personal world.  
  
Before long, the faint, first strains of  _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_ begin to rise and swell like a full tide. It goes doggedly unnoticed by Matt who, after ten dreamless, desperate years, tells himself he's quite forgotten the taste of living his every dream. Forgotten the taste of bitter-sour knowledge that always lurks under such a suspect reality.

He tells himself he's forgotten the taste of an impending _kick_ and the bleak reality that often waits beyond it. And thus telling and told, slips a little deeper, still. Holds "Tad- _chan,_ " and this unexpected and undeserved _happy ending_ closer, still, hoping against hope that if it's indeed that second-half, that he then dies without ever knowing it wasn't also the first.


End file.
